


Dreaming Demons

by villainsarebetter (darkling59)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark One Emma, F/M, Post-Season 4, Rumple in Stasis, dream walking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4524105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkling59/pseuds/villainsarebetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma goes searching for advice after becoming the Dark One. Unfortunately, the only one with anything useful to say is in a coma...but that doesn't stop her from hunting him down.</p><p>Trapped wandering the corridors of his own mind, a personal purgatory he can't seem to escape, Rumpelstiltskin receives a visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming Demons

They say that when you’re dying, your life flashes before your eyes; the images of your past, of what you most regret and most love, of what you’ll miss and what you will be happy to leave behind.

The first time Rumpelstiltskin died when he went after Pan, it all happened too fast for anything like that to occur. He wasn’t expecting die, but he was willing for the sake of his family. In one quick movement, it was over. He didn’t remember the time he spent in the vault of the Dark One that followed his death but he didn’t think it was conducive to good memories. Perhaps the evils of the past, but definitely not the memories he would wish to hold onto.

This time was different.

He knew he was dying; he’d known for a long time. Somehow, he still wasn’t prepared. After everything he’d done; all the sacrifices he made, the love he clung to with every fiber of his being, the deals, the trials, the centuries spent as a monster for the sake of finding his son... it all came for naught. He found himself dying alone and in pain on the floor of his shop.

Belle’s return was far more than he’d dared hope for and he loved her with every fiber of her being for it, but even though his heart lurched in his chest at the sight of his wife, he knew she was too late. He was glad to see her on a personal level, but his elation was tempered by cold fear – with him was the absolute worst, most dangerous place she could be. Because he was so close to losing control and if Belle stayed through his death throes, she would be at the epicenter. She would be the monster’s target. And that could not happen.

So he clung to life with everything he had for as long as possible, preserving that tiny flickering light deep within the black tar that had long since compressed his once-generous soul to a fraction of its original size.

His vision was the first thing to fail; the world faded quickly. It was dark by the time Belle left, but he was still able to hear her panicked footsteps running away, enough to be sadly relieved for her safety. His sense of hearing was the second to go; eventually sound faded into distant white noise and then suffocating silence. Even the sound of his own harsh panting faded and vanished until all he had left was the weak trembling of his heart vibrating in his chest.

When the end came, he was completely isolated inside his mind. Through his magic, he knew the heroes were there; he felt them arrive to witness his final moments. While he was not happy with their presence (he certainly was not pleased with them or their recent actions) he was hopeful that they might be able to protect Belle and stop the monster within him that was clamoring for release.

Then, there was a new presence. One he vaguely recognized. Followed by a slight pain in his chest that paled next to the agony he’d been feeling from his cursed heart.

The darkness drained away.

He was clinging so hard to the tiny little scrap of himself concealed within the curse that there was no way he could avoid the sensation: a great pressure gave way when, for the first time in three centuries, the rot and tar that had solidified around his soul lost their handhold. It was like a dam had broken, allowing all of the evil and corruption to drain away. He felt light _. Free._

But it was too much, too soon. For all that the darkness was his bane, it was also his lifeline; without it holding him together, what was left simply fell apart – there just wasn’t enough left of his soul to recover. That tiny little scrap of humanity was miniscule in size, too small to be seen in his empty heart. He was too far gone.

With nothing left to fight for, nothing to fight against, and no way back to his body, he had no reason to struggle any longer.

Rumpelstiltskin fell.

* * *

Inside his soul, the former Dark One wandered.

He didn’t see any memories or people; not Baelfire, not Belle, not Hook, not Cora…not the heroes nor the villains, not the people he’d killed nor the people he saved, not the people he hated nor the people he loved. It was just…empty.

There were houses and streets. Scenery. Trees and buildings. Occasionally roads. It was a strange mishmash of modern conveniences from the world without magic and the medieval setting of the Enchanted Forest, all washed out in dimmer colors than the real world as if coated with a layer of opaque gray paint. He didn’t care. He didn’t even try to make sense of it.

Some of the buildings were important to him. Bars, houses, hovels, mansions, barns, or even castles that he remembered on some level. A few of them stirred traces of emotion in his nearly empty heart. But others were simply landmarks he’d happened to pass once or twice on his travels. He noticed that they were familiar…but they did not interest him.

He didn’t care much about anything in his current condition. He simply wandered.

The Dark One, the demon, the monster, _Rumpelstiltskin_ was gone. He wasn’t the spinner he’d once been, he wasn’t the Dark One, he wasn’t even Mr. Gold. He was no one. His heart was blank and empty. And the reasons that those versions of himself had to fight for life and love were gone. There was literally nothing left.

Baelfire was dead. Lost for good beyond his reach.

Belle was also beyond his reach. He loved her and she stayed with him while he was dying but he knew she had moved on. That she didn’t truly love him anymore. She couldn’t. He was a coward, a monster…he had hurt her so much. And he had pushed her into hurting him, which had also caused her pain. He was responsible for all of the misfortune that she had suffered, that _he_ had caused both directly and indirectly, even those that had come back around to bite him.

The enemies he once might have given his life to defeat (to protect what he loved) had become heroes; he still wasn’t quite sure how that happened, why they were accepted despite horrific crimes in their pasts, some of which dwarfed his own, but it was inconsequential. They were heroes, he was not. It didn’t matter anymore.

He knew that it would be best for everyone if he simply died, but he didn’t know how. He didn’t want to wake up; he had no reason to; but something held him back from accepting death. Some part of him, that little hidden part that fought for three hundred years through so many wars, so many curses, demons, monsters, and heroes, all who would see him dead for the good or evil he had done. He had fought: physically, mentally, and most of all within his own soul to maintain his capacity to love.

For all that he considered himself a coward, he was still a fighter.

And some small instinctual part of him did not want to die.

That was why he found himself wandering in limbo, this strange empty place within his soul where there was no weather, no sky, and no passage of time. There was only the road in front of him, the road behind, and the mishmash of faded scenery around that grew even more washed out and distant the longer he was there. His capacity to feel was muted, both because he was disconnected from his physical body and because he lost a great deal of himself to the curse. His heart was so damaged, so lost, so not what a human heart should be, that he honestly didn’t know if he had the capacity for any feelings…beyond love.

He remembered love.

He would hold onto that emotion no matter what happened.

He would never forget Belle or Baelfire no matter how badly he’d failed them, how much pain it caused him, or how pointless it was to dwell on what he would never have again. Even if it meant he had to traverse the echoing roads of his mind for eternity, he would keep those memories of love alive in his soul.

Even without a foothold in the living world, those memories held him back.

And so he wandered.

* * *

The first sign of life he encountered actually encountered him. He had no idea how long he had been in the empty world by that point, just that he had been walking and walking and walking. There was no hunger, thirst, or fatigue in his current state but there was a sort of boredom, a tediousness that came with the vast nothing.

So, when he came upon a bench on the side of a road and a sea beyond, he paused in his wandering. He recognized it; not as Storybrooke’s coast, but as the coast that had faced the Frontlands, not far from where he had once lost Milah and met Hook - the edge of the small rugged land where he’d eked out a miserable meager existence. But there was no sign of the taverns or docks or ships that once stood there, only empty water. The realization wasn’t enough to command his attention; his eyes merely passed over the shore and dismissed it unimportant. Without any further thoughts, he sat down on the bench and stared off into the distance over the ocean, absently noting where it dissolved into grey fog.

That was when he heard the sound behind him; the slight scuffing of shoes. Sneakers, if he wasn’t mistaken; familiar sneakers at that.

There was only one person who ever dared interrupt him in such a manner: Emma Swan.

He didn’t turn around.

He half hoped she would leave him alone to his emptiness and apathy, but she didn’t. The steps tentatively came forward and walked up to the back of the bench, hesitated, and rounded the other side. The intruder sat down next to him heavily, making the flimsy bench shake and the faux-metal squeak in protest.

He didn’t look at her and she didn’t say anything. The sensation of her eyes boring into the side of his head persisted for a long minute but after that she turned and looked at the waves.

That was _not_ characteristic.

He shouldn’t feel concerned. She was a hero – she and her allies had snubbed and mistreated him many times. She stood alongside the people who had mocked and ridiculed him as he lay dying (Hook, he’d expected; Regina, he had not), who had made his life difficult for too long. But he did like Emma, beyond all of that. She was refreshing, did not buy into the black and white world vision that most of the heroes of the Enchanted Forest believed, and he knew she really did have a good heart underneath her guff and sharp edges.

Besides, he was the monster. She had every reason to hate him just like everyone else.

Yet here she was.

After a long moment (he didn’t know how long exactly; time stood still in this place), he sighed deeply.

“Can I help you, dearie?” he finally asked.

“Gold.” Her voice was rough, tired…and frightened.

He still didn’t turn. His empty heart had trouble summoning up any emotion and this definitely did not work into the spark of love that kept him from fading completely.

“Gold?” she prompted again. And there was such desperation in the tone that this time, despite his apathy, he slanted a gaze in her direction. She looked _awful._ Her eyes were red-rimmed and hollow, her lips were pulled tight, and there was a strange almost golden pallor to her skin. After the first questioning glance, his eyes widened and he turned his head completely to take in her altered appearance.

“You took on the curse.” He said, half wondering, shock and curiosity keeping his expression honest. “They took it out of me and put it in you. Why would they do that?”

“You remember. Thank God.” She let out a heavy exhale and her shoulders slumped in relief. He was surprised - nobody was ever relieved to see him, not in a very long time. Belle perhaps, but even that had always been conditional; there were circumstances and caveats. But he didn’t even know what Emma was doing there.

“How did you come to possess my curse, Ms. Swan?” He questioned. The last he remembered was the darkness within draining away.

“You were dying.” She said, with the air of someone explaining the obvious.

He found it wholly insufficient and scoffed. “I was _dead_.”

A flicker of discomfort, maybe even guilt, passed over her face. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry about that, by the way.”

He hummed noncommittally and gave a dismissive wave of a hand. She continued.

“Belle told us what was going on; that if you died, the curse, the Dark One, would break free and…um… kill everyone. Possibly everyone in the town, actually, or more, so the Apprentice siphoned the curse out of you and tried to put it in the hat, but that didn’t work. It needed a human host and I …well. There was no other way to protect my family.”

“Hm.” Rumple muttered and looked out over the water. “You seem to be doing fairly well.” He commented. “You still have your capacity for reason and emotion. That’s more than most dark ones.”

A bitter snort was his only answer.

“No?”

“No.” He glanced at her as she hunched over into her coat, pulling it tight around her. “That’s only in here. Out there, the curse…it feels _good_. It feels _right._ ”

She stopped, obviously wrestling with herself, and he patiently waited for her to continue.

“I scared Henry yesterday.” She finally whispered. “I came to you because I couldn’t understand why he was upset. I was _protecting_ him from that bastard. It wasn’t until I was inside your head, and outside of _mine_ , that I realized he was _right._ ”

“And yet, you did realize it. That puts you far ahead of most Dark Ones.” He felt a flash of sympathy – he remembered exactly what it felt like trying to explain how _right_ the Dark One’s violence felt to Baelfire. Even trying had cost him so much love and trust that it hurt to think about. Better to focus on Emma.

“Not you.”

He stilled. “And how would you know that?”

“Because I remember.” She replied, voice quiet. “I remember the ogre wars and Zoso. I remember what Hook did to Milah, and what she did to you, and I remember everything else, too.”

His head jerked up and he twisted to look at her, shaken out of his ambivalence for the first time. “What? That’s not possible.”

“You didn’t get any memories from the other dark ones? Cuz they’re…they’re _here_. I’ve seen some of those, especially Zoso.”

Rumpelstiltskin was already shaking his head. “I did. However, I paid them no mind. Zoso’s memories gave me a starting point to understanding my powers, but I knew the stories of the past Dark Ones. I wanted nothing to do with them. The first thing I did was wall away the memories.”

“That makes sense.” Emma muttered, looking mildly embarrassed. “I don’t know how to do that.”

Gold snorted and nearly rolled his eyes. “How long have you been the Dark One, Miss Swan?”

“…What?”

“How long has it been since that happened?”

“…You don’t know?”

“Time is meaningless here. How would I know?”

“It’s been three weeks.” She replied quietly.

He let out a breath through his nose and nodded once. “I see. You’re doing well, then.”

“I’m not doing enough.” She replied, frustrated. He could literally see the air around her darken as the Dark One tried to assert itself through her negative emotions, weakened though they were separated from her own body. “My family is out there and I can’t…do you know what they _did?_ What they did to _me_? And to everyone else? How can I forgive that? I don’t _want_ to forgive that. What they did to Lily…How are they even remotely heroes? Why did I even trust them with my dagger?”

“…You _gave_ them your dagger?” he looked at her like she was insane. “Why would you ever do that?”

“Because I trust them. I love them. They’re my family.”

He shook his head. “Ms. Swan…have you ever heard the saying ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’?”

“Yeah…”

“You parents are indicative of that moral.”

“You’re talking about Lily, aren’t you?”

“Lily is one example. There are others, though I doubt they quite remember them. After all, their victims were only monsters.” The bitterness came through in his tone and Emma shifted uncomfortably. She knew the mindset – she’d seen it plenty since becoming the Dark One, a ‘monster’ in their eyes. Prejudice was alive and well in the Enchanted Forest.

“…I know what you mean. But I gave it to them and I trust them.”

“Have they used it?”

“…A couple times.”

Rumple shook his head. “You should try to get it back, dearie. That is not something that anyone who has not been bound to the dagger can understand.”

“I trust them.” She repeated, although there was a note of uncertainty in her tone and he would bet anything it was due to their use of the dagger.

“Why are you here?” He changed the subject. “ _How_ are you here?”

She shrugged, glancing off to the side in an obvious evasion. “I wanted answers.”

“Is that so?”

“Well, I have your memories, but only some of them. It’s hard to understand; you were alive a long time…for like, hundreds of years?”

“Three hundred and fifty or so.” He confirmed.

“Yeah, that. And I can get some stuff, but most of it is really…emotional. It’s based on things you …um…”

“Of course it is.” He growled, resigned and bitter. He didn’t like revealing his past to _anyone_ and the fact that the curse would only transfer the bits of his past he preferred nobody knew about just figured.

“Yeah, sorry about that. But unfortunately, it means there isn’t much about how to use magic or the practical use of…anything. I think the curse is trying to keep me from finding out how to control it. So…what do I do?”

Rumple sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you, dearie.”

“YOU controlled it from the very beginning!”

“No I didn’t. It controlled me. When I killed Zoso; I was trying to get enough power to save my son. I had no intention of becoming…” He waved a hand to indicate himself, as he currently was. “…This.” He frowned at Emma’s uncomprehending expression. “You probably remember Hordor and what I did to his men. And then what I did to the ogres.”

“You saved like three hundred kids!”

“I did. And I did it by killing fifteen men and over eighty ogres. And then the extra ten nobles from the Duke’s court.”

“They deserved it.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t matter. I was a monster. And I didn’t realize it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I killed people and I didn’t realize it was wrong. I took joy in it. I started killing for very menial reasons. Had Rumpelstiltskin the spinner seen Rumpelstiltskin the Dark One, he would have been terrified. Bae was terrified.” He didn’t know why he was being so talkative and forthright with the Savior, save for the fact that there was no longer any reason to have secrets. After all, he would probably never wake up; perhaps his knowledge in her hands would be of some use to Belle in the real world.

“…Oh.” She murmured, sudden understanding in her tone. He didn’t look at her, just stared out over the waves lost in his memories.

“He was terrified of what I’d become and that’s eventually what led me to realize that I was a monster.”

“How?”

“He was willing to do anything to get away. Well, not to get away, he wanted to save me. He wanted a fresh start. And then, the Blue Fairy.”

“The portal.” There was acknowledgement and remembrance in her tone and his mouth tightened in irritation and anger. That was something he didn’t want _anybody_ to know; a memory of his and his alone of his son and a mistake, a horrible mistake he’d made in a moment of cowardice.

“Yes. The portal. The _Blue Fairy,_ ” He spat the name. Even without his curse, he hated that damn bug. “gave him a bean and did not tell him that...what she told him was that it would take both of us to the world without magic where I would not be cursed and we would both get a fresh start.”

“Right. The same sort of bean that took your dad to Neverland.”

“Yes.”

“And the world without magic…where the curse gave you a heart attack…”

“Yes.”

“Was Blue trying to kill you?”

“Quite possibly. The curse would not have simply gone away, as…everyone knows now. Something would have happened; whether I died of a heart attack, the curse found some obscure source of magic, or it ripped through me and found a different host. The only thing the bean would have done is sent me and Bae to the world without magic. We wouldn’t have been Blue’s problem anymore, but we probably would have died rather quickly.”

“Wait, but the curse wouldn’t have been that bad then. Wouldn’t you have been able to…well, deal with it? And it could have taken years or decades to get bad enough to give you a heart attack.”

“My dear, Baelfire arrived in your world in Victorian London in a time when life was not kind to outsiders. What do you think would have happened to an uneducated foreign cripple and his teenaged son who appeared out of thin air with no food, no shelter, no friends, and no practical skills?”

“You would have died.” She realized, tone quiet. Rumple could sense her discomfort; he rarely spoke like this in front of anyone, even Belle. But Emma already had his memories, and it was information she needed in order to understand…information that no one could use against him in his current state, or ever again.

“Yes. And while I can’t _prove_ that that blasted fairy knew...”

“Yeah, I’m getting the picture.” Her tone was dark.

“Had a run in with Blue in the past few weeks, have you?”

“You could say that. I’m started to understand why you and Regina hate her so much.”

“Hmph. Yes, well, most people subject to repeated exposure do tend to come to that opinion.”

“So, control…” she pulled him back on topic. Desperation still shone in her eyes, though it was muted by the cordiality of their conversation. “You said you didn’t have it until the portal…incident? What happened after that?”

“After that, I had to get back to Bae. I was willing to do anything to find him, and quickly I realized that included re-learning how to act human. Make no mistake, dearie; the Dark One is NOT human. You can’t feel the way a human feels; love remains, but anything else…empathy, sympathy, regret…anything even vaguely positive has trouble penetrating the curse. Negative emotions, on the other hand, you can feel more easily. “

“I’ve noticed.” She muttered.

“So what I did when I realized the curse was compressing my heart-“

“Compressing it?”

“Did you see what it looked like when the apprentice siphoned off the darkness?”

“Yeah, it was black.”

“After a fashion. The blackness was the curse itself, gathering around the heart. Think of it like sticky tar hardening layer upon layer and crushing until there was nothing left. Technically, my heart was the speck of red at the very middle of that dark mass.”

“Oh.” She sounded rather grossed out and he nearly rolled his eyes.

“Don’t sound so presumptuous, Miss Swan. The same thing is happening to you as we speak.”

She shuddered. “So how do I stop it?”

“My dear, if I knew _that,_ I would know how to cure the curse of the Dark One.”

“Belle said something about true love’s kiss?”

His face darkened. “ _Belle_ said or _you_ pried into my memories?”

“A little bit of both.” Emma shifted in discomfort. “Belle didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I can’t say I blame her.” He muttered, defeated. He loved Belle, but he knew he would ever see her again. All he ever did was cause her pain. “If Belle had broken the curse at that point it time, it would not have destroyed the Dark One.”

“What? But…”

“No. That’s not how it works. The curse is on the host. It binds the darkness to a human soul until death, then it is transferred to a new host through the dagger. If True Love’s kiss had broken the curse, the Dark One would have been set free.”

“You mean…like in town.”

“Yes. Had Belle succeeded, the darkness would have taken her. And then it would have taken me.”

“She didn’t mention that.”

“She doesn’t know.”

Emma hunched down in on herself and he looked at her with something like sympathy, an emotion he hadn’t been capable of feeling for a very long time. It was a novel experience.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any answers for you.In three hundred years, I never found a way to break the curse and in the 1200 years before that, no Dark One has ever succeeded in escaping it.”

“The Apprentice said that Merlin would be able to help.”

Rumple snorted cynically. “Merlin? The Sorcerer? I wouldn’t trust him.”

“Why not? If he’s that powerful…”

“My dear,” Rumple interrupted. “ _He_ is responsible for the curse in the first place.”

“Yeah…to control the darkness.”

“That is not the whole story. He is the one that brought the darkness into being.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Dark One was not originally a part of the Enchanted Forest, the world without magic, or any of the other realms. Merlin gained his power by siphoning off the darkness. Or rather, through the separation of darkness and light. Have you ever wondered where fairy magic came from?”

“Damn.” She muttered. “Just…damn.” She sounded crushed and he looked at her in sympathy.

“I’m not saying he can’t do it. As he is the one that caused it in the first place, perhaps he is the one that can undo it. However, trusting him…”

“Yeah.” She muttered. “Bad idea. But…how did you control it? If I can’t break it…”

“For me, it was the deals.”

“The deals?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you did those because you’re _you_. You’re Rumpelstiltskin.”

“My dear, the deals came before the legend.” He gave her a _look_ and she flushed slightly and pulled back, embarrassed. “When I was human, the only deals I made were at the market. As the Dark One, I found that if I diverted the magic that the curse wanted me to use to kill, maim, and destroy, to express all of those dark emotions you are feeling right now, I could divert it into something else and deals seemed were the best outlet.

“How do deals take magic? You mean, you gave magic in return for whatever?”

“No. My deals are magically binding, dearie. Every deal I make is made with magic. I don’t enforce them – magic itself does.”

“Oh. So…so like that deal with Ashley’s baby….”

“She knew. It was in the contract. It is _always_ in the contract.”

“So the deals helped?”

“They did. Not at first –one or two doesn’t make a difference, but every deal acted like a thin chain that tied off a little piece of the dark one’s magic, a little piece of its influence on my soul. After many years full of dealing - and I can tell you the first fifty years or so were almost exclusively dealing - I had thousands of deals going at once, and the curse’s influence was easier to handle. It didn’t stop it, but it let me think a little more clearly.”

“That makes sense…”

“It should.” He gritted his teeth. He did _not_ want to talk about this, but it _needed_ to be said and Emma was the only one capable of hearing him. “It’s also why it progressed so quickly after I was resurrected.”

“After…OH. Zelena.”

“I take it remember that too.” He felt a mixture of shame and relief to realize he wouldn’t have to explain, because she already knew.

“Yeah. I’m …we’re all really sorry that we didn’t try to help you.”

He snorted. “Dearie, don’t bother trying to talk for them. I appreciate the sentiment but I know they don’t care.”

“They do. They just…they don’t get it.”

“Yes, well. They don’t care enough to get it. And that is their problem. Not mine. And not yours.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“Hm.”

“So after you came back…”

“There was no dealing. There were no chains. There was nothing to hold back the darkness.”

“So is that why-?”

“Well, it was that and it was also because Zelena exercised the darkness. She purposely dragged it as close to the surface as she could and after that, it was too late. The hat was the only way I knew of to remove the influence.”

“Yeah…the hat. Um. What was with Hook?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why did you try to kill Hook?”

“Do I sense trouble in paradise?”

“What?”

“You don’t sound very upset that I was trying to kill your ‘True Love’.”

She frowned but didn’t get nearly angry enough for his taste; alarm bells started to ring in Rumpelstiltskin's head. Was the Dark One that entrenched in her soul, to affect her bond with the man she claimed to love? She seemed relatively stable, but he was hardly a good judge...

“He’s…er…I told him I knew about Milah and what I thought of her. And he…I’m not sure he’s the man I thought he was.”

“He did not agree with your opinion, I take it?”

“It turns out, he didn’t tell me a _lot_.”

“I see. Well, the reason I chose your pirate was because he threatened my marriage. My marriage, my freedom, and my wife. To say nothing of his past actions against my loved ones.”

“…The blackmail is in the memories too. A lot of the time since Neverland is.”

Rumple snorted angrily. “That is why I chose him. And the reason he was necessary is the same reason you are the Dark One right now. I was trying to remove the curse…to divorce myself form the blade and in doing so sheer off the darkness. I knew what was happening to my heart and I was trying to stop it. And retain my power, of course. But the Curse needs a host.”

“So you were going to…put it in Hook? You were going to make _him_ the Dark One?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I planned to divert the darkness from me into him while I held his heart.”

“…But… the Dark One infects the heart.”

“Exactly. So the light power in the hat was important; with the fairies to offset the darkness, the Curse would have been balanced. That should have been enough to hold the remaining power, but the curse itself still required a human host. And if I held Hook’s heart – if I put the curse into him and then put him into the hat, it would not have been able to infect him.

“Because you held his heart.”

“Yes. I would have killed him.” He confessed without guilt. Even without the Dark One’s curse, he hated that pirate. “I would have crushed his heart after the hat was closed.”

“But the Dark One’s curse would have been contained?”

“Hopefully. That was the point, after all. The power would have stayed with me, the curse would have gone with the pirate into the hat.” He replied. ‘Minus the power, that’s essentially what you heroes did at the end. After…”

“Right, right, I get it.” She said. “We did the exact same thing, except we didn’t charge the hat and we didn’t have a host for the curse on standby.”

“Exactly.”

She sighed. “You know, if you had just _talked_ to us about this…”

“You would have done absolutely nothing. Or rather, you would have attempted to take my dagger and tried to lock me in a cage. AGAIN.”

“I really don’t think they would have done that, Gold.”

“My dear, you have my memories, and you have seen the hypocrisy of the heroes. Do you really believe that?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know anymore. But what do I do? I don’t have fifty years to create deals and make chains…and that wouldn’t happen in Storybrooke anyway. My family is here, in the present.”

“I've given you what advise I have.”

“Isn’t there _anything_ else?”

He sighed irritably and shrugged. “All I can tell you is to remember the love you feel for your son. Cherish it. Cling to that as hard as you can, and make sure the darkness does not pollute it. Provided you have that true love inside of you fighting the darkness, there will always be humanity in you. Let THAT guide you as much as you are able. I’m afraid the rest of it is up to you.”

“I see.”

For a long minute, they simply sat there next to each other staring out over the waves, both of them lost in thought. Emma’s considerably more troubled than Rumple’s. Eventually, Rumple realized the water was starting to take on a red tinge. With interest, he looked around at the bland landscape and realized a lot of the features were starting to do so. The leaves on a nearby tree were edged in red, the water left red streaks on the beach…even the bench where they sat was beginning to take on a rusty hue.

“Miss. Swan?” It took him a moment to realize what that meant and then he frowned. “How exactly are you here?”

Emma blinked at him. “What?”

“Did you use a blood spell?” He was frowning deeply. Blood spells were the _darkest_ of magic and usually required at least one person to die. Usually the subject of the spell. Which was apparently _him._

She looked where he was gesturing at the reddening waves and blanched.

“Oh…oh. Uh-oh.”

“Am I _bleeding out_?”

“I’m really sorry. I just needed to talk to you and-I needed your blood for that and, I guess, well…”

“And I was still bleeding when you did the spell.”

“You had to be for it to work.”

“Am I required to die for it to work?”

“No…no, I don’t think so. You just need to be bleeding while I’m in here.”

“How _long_ are you planning to be in here?”

The redness was rapidly spreading and, for all that he didn’t have any reason to live, he didn’t really want to die. For it to be progressing this rapidly, after not noticing it at all for their conversation, was a really bad sign.

“I should leave now.” She abruptly stood up.

He didn’t follow her.

“Good luck, dearie.” He said.

“Thanks, Gold. You too. You have anything you want me to tell anyone? Belle?”

He stiffened and didn’t look at her. “Just…tell her I’m sorry.” He said, finally.

Emma shifted uncomfortably then nodded and vanished on the spot.

Rumple remained, staring out over the still reddening waters.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this awhile ago, probably not long after season 4 ended, but I was hoping to do more with it so I put off posting it.
> 
> Since then, I haven't had any further motivation so I finally decided to just put it up.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
